Surf Stoke

When you crave the salt water and the sand beneath your feet, it's in your blood. Hooked, addicted, and part of the ocean. Surfing does that to you. Being in the water is healing for the mind, body , and soul. It's a place where you are free to relinquish control and let Mother Nature hold you. Sure, it means being thrown around underwater and frozen to a point where you can no longer feel your feet, yes. It's the euphoric experience of being one with the water. Water infused with the energy of storms far away. Being pushed at a rapid pace where your soul and your body meet in a place of stoke, and your mind…lets go.

Freedom, exhilaration, and peace, are only a few words that describe the feeling of surfing. Most often referred to as the stoke, is the feeling that you crave from surfing. It's hard to describe a moment that you can only get from a magic moment between yourself and the waves. It's an exchange of energy that ripples through you as you ride a force that only Mother Nature can create. Her powerful pulse of waves are all different, and all a mark in space and time. Each wave ridden is unique, never the same and not something that can be taken for granted.

So when the stoke has well and truly penetrated the soul of a surfer, it never really leaves. It's like a spiritual tattoo from the Earth, always there, reminding you of it. When the stoke goes dormant it can lay quiet, watching you go about your day, week, month, year, or years. It is always there and can be triggered and awoken under the right conditions. Common triggers can be the sight of a waves crashing on the sand,  a surf shop, surf videos, or finding a Billabong t-shirt in your cupboard from the 90s. Other triggers can be, sand, water, a Nirvana song, and the biggest sensory trigger of all…the whiff of neoprene (what wetsuits are made out of).  Wetsuits are essential for the Australian southern waters most of the time. In the south the water can be unforgiving with its cold temperatures. So, when the aroma of a full size wearable stubby cooler hits the nasal passages, surfing takes over the brain.

Surf stoke is something you can never truly have enough of; it's an addiction to energy and synergy. Being connected to Mother Earth in the water is magical. It's the closest thing we humans can do to being as agile and carefree as a dolphin playing in the ocean. Letting the pure energy of a wave move you whilst you dance with its water is being one with all parts of you. It's a healing and invigorating journey where you can let your mind take a back seat for a while and just be. Stoke is a natural drug that will be with you for life.

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